Rod Collins’ Wiki
Management: A Revolutionary New Model for a Rapidly Changing and
Collaborative World shares a compelling model for
effective management in a dynamic and turbulent world.
As such, it is an indispensable read for anyone interested in
organizational self-management. And what, exactly, is a wiki? As Collins
explains, wiki is the Hawaiian word for “quick” or “fast”—a word that pretty
much sums up the today’s business environment.
Collins looks at multiple vanguard organizations (including
Morning Star and W.L. Gore) as exemplars of sustainable management practices
in a networked world where information moves at light speed and the
half-lives of business strategies approach zero. In the midst of this
anxiety-inducing change, however, there is hope. With the reader’s
apprehension of increasing complexity assured, the book outlines an
approachable model containing five crucial disciplines for surviving and
thriving in this new collaborative environment. Collins labels this cluster
of disciplines Wiki Management—his new management effectiveness paradigm for
a hyper-connected, quantum world where meaning depends on context and the
only constant is change.
After setting the table with a first course discussion of
complexity, technology and accelerating change, Collins serves the main
course: an in-depth discussion of Wiki Management’s five disciplines. The
disciplines incorporate myriad principles and useful practices regarding
customers, collective intelligence, shared understanding, critical
performance drivers and peer accountability. He peppers up the main course
with stories and examples of real organizations that complement the relevant
arguments. Deft and judicious servings of open-source business stories,
personal experiences, and powerful thought leadership lessons highlight the
main dish.
Practical, well-researched and persuasive, Wiki
Management is as fresh and contemporary as the latest issue of
Wired magazine and as inarguable as Moore’s Law (which
seems to be a key driver of the need for Wiki Management in the first place).
Savor it.
